Last (x) movies you saw (II)

trying Transit tonight and Anthropocene on Thursday; Burtynsky has a killer eye but i wouldn't be half as interested to see it on television. Scope!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBrXykjecx8

xp Zama and Birds of Passage are among the best films of the past five years, great doubleheader!

I'm still trying to process both films (plus Burning that same weekend).

i would imagine!

Greta wasn't even good camp.

― Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, March 3, 2019 8:01 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can't wait to love this movie

its problems are structural & technical... I'd be really surprised if you like it even with reservations

Zama was the most memorable film from the last couple of years for me

looking forward to seeing Birds of Passage, really liked Embrace of the Serpent

still haven’t seen Burning, Shoplifters, Lazzaro Felice

...or Claire's Camera, Girl, Transit, or Border

plan to see most of them in the next few weeks

Transit was quietly, confidently remarkable; the conceit of setting it in a contemporary world (sans cell phones and social media) gave it an immediacy that lent itself nicely to increased empathy.
lots of Kafkaesque dread and a great plot twist (and closing credits music) at the end. Not much in the way of sex or violence that wasn't only keenly implied. Surprisingly engaging every step of the way.
Pretty sure Franz Rogowski is gonna be a Hollywood star in three years or less.

Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion (6.5)
The Stranger Beside Me (5.5)
Wind River (7.0)
A Woman, a Part (6.0)
Rabbit Hole (8.0)
The Lovely Bones (6.0)
Moonrise (6.5)
The Snowman (6.0)
Double Jeopardy (5.5)
Bleeding Heart (6.0)
The Conversation (10.0)

Pretty sure Franz Rogowski is gonna be a Hollywood star in three years or less.

as New Joaquin Phoenix? He's a dead ringer.

Tension (1950, dir. John Berry), TCM: "Brief Synopsis
A man who had planned to murder his wife's lover becomes the prime suspect when somebody beats him to it." Narrated by wry homicide cop Barry Sullivan, a fedora hipster in the historical, trickster sense ("the Madison Avenue hipster" was a type, long before Normam Mailer arrived at the 1964 Republican Convention and immediately spotted the young operatives sporting wrap-around shades, skinny ties, skinny suits). practically bopping in the room at one point: he lovvves his job, ditto his partner, graceful fatman Willian Conrad. Won't tell you how it "ends," but like to think Sullivan ooutsmarted hinself, and nicer guy Basehart outlucked himself, when perp spills beans on stand. Audrey Totter nails her noirness, young Cyd Charisse is innocently glamorous good neighbor in nebbish druggist Basehart's other life.

Rabid(1977, written & directed by Cronenberg), TCM: "Brief Synopsis
When Rose is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident, an experimental surgery is performed on her that saves her life. But after the operation, she finds that she craves blood, and as she seeks out victims to satisfy her craving, the city is sent into hysteria." Well not exactly hysteria: the good Canadian health system deals with the epidemic of not-exactly-rabies by sending out garbage trucks with sharpshooters. That Cronenberg twinkle, yet concern for characters (back and forth; twisted yet tasteful considering, without pulling punches). It's not Rose's fault, and she seems ont that far from young Cyd above, except for being maybe even more delusional. Wasn't Marilyn Chambers originally known as a porn actress? Never heard of rest of cast, but they're all good (starts in a plastic surgery spa, with some well-heeled addicts etc.)

Marilyn Chambers isn't in this, where did I get her name? Sorry, movie came on really late here, TCM Underground prob.

Marilyn Chambers is definitely the lead actress in Rabid! And yeah, she was in Behind the Green Door and lots of other porno pre and post Rabid (which was definitely her most notable 'legit' movie credit).

Lost in the Stratosphere (Brown, 1934)
Ruben Brandt, Collector (Krstić, 2018)
Cocktail Hour (Schertzinger, 1933)
*Jack Frost (Iwerks, 1934)
*The Vampire Bat (Strayer, 1933)
Balloon Land (Iwerks, 1935)
The Sin of Nora Moran (Goldstone, 1933)

Polar (Akerlund, 2019)
Leave No Trace (Granik, 2018)
Mikey and Nicky (May, 1976)
*The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)
The Death of Stalin (Iannucci, 2018)
The Foreigner (Campbell, 2017)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
Milford Graves Full Mantis (Meginsky, Young, 2018)
Enemy (Villeneuve, 2013)
Captain Marvel (Boden, Fleck, 2019)
Drunken Master II (Lau, Chan, 1994)

Tragedy Girls (MacIntyre, 2017) - 5/10
Secrets & Lies (Leigh, 1996) - 8/10
A Story from Chikamatsu (Mizoguchi, 1954) - 8/10
Suzanne’s Career (Rohmer, 1963) - 8/10
Kings of the Road (Wenders, 1976) - 6/10
The Searchers (Ford, 1956) - 8/10
My Night at Maud’s (Rohmer, 1969) - 10/10
Shoot the Moon (Parker, 1982) - 9/10
The Passion of Anna (Bergman, 1969) - 6/10
La Collectionneuse (Rohmer, 1967) - 8/10
Tout Va Bien (Godard, 1972) - 6/10
Dry Summer (Erksan, 1963) - 9/10
Love in the Afternoon (Rohmer, 1972) - 7/10
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (Greaves, 1968) - 10/10
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take Two ½ (Greaves, 2005) - 7/10
Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) - 9/10
I, Daniel Blake (Loach, 2016) - 9/10
The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer, 1962) - 10/10
De L’origine du XXIe siècle (Godard, 2000) - 9/10
Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo (Godard, 1993) - 9/10
Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010) - 5/10
Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961) - 5/10
The Old Place (Godard & Miéville, 2000) - 9/10
Liberté et Patrie (Godard & Miéville, 2002) - 9/10
The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947) - 6/10
Á propos de Nice (Vigo, 1930) - 10/10
Taris (Vigo, 1931) - 9/10
What’s Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972) - 9/10
Zéro de conduite (Vigo, 1933) - 7/10
Notre Musique (Godard, 2004) - 6/10
Bob le Flambeur (Melville, 1956) - 8/10
L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934) - 10/10

Saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with the kids, who liked it a lot. I hadn't seen it in close to 20 years. It held up well, but I remembered there being more to the story than what was there. I think I might have been conflating it with "House of Flying Daggers."

And boy, First Reformed was really something.

so I finally watched Stuart Little 2 in full with the kids (only 80 minutes!) and I'm left with a lot of questions. so the mice & birds can talk to humans *and* animals, but the cats can only talk to other animals? why is Stuart so horny for the bird? what kind of fucked up offspring would they produce? has Geena Davis ever acted before?

Á propos de Nice (Vigo, 1930) - 10/10

This is a gem.

Climax - 8/10
Katie Tippel - 6/10
La Salamandre -9/10
Charles, mort ou vif - 8/10
)h! Soo-jung -7/10
Night And Day - 9/10
Castaway - 8/10
L'Alliance - 8/10
The Shop Around The Corner - 9/10

Climax has been getting panned; I take it you think unjustly?

Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955) 10/10
Aparajito (Rqy, 1956) 10/10
The Music Room (Ray, 1958) 10/10

Knife + Heart (Gonzalez, 2019) 7/10
Ash is Purest White (Jia, 2019) 7/10
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Garver, 2019) 6/10
The Nightingale (Kent, 2019) 6/10
Greta (Jordan, 2019) 5/10
Leaving Neverland (Ross, 2019) 6/10
* Six Degrees of Separation (Schepisi, 1993) 8/10
* Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (Fassbinder, 1976) 8/10

xpost Climax hasn't been getting panned, has it? it's actually getting some of his better reviews, iirc. It's definitely more of the same, but miles better than Love and better than Into the Void (as much as I can remember it), where the opening credits were the highlight.

As far as Noe goes it's an 8/10. I think the contained space in which the film takes place suited him, helped concentrate the direction - if that makes sense. I liked it much more than any of his previous films. Also: the soundtrack was absolute fire.

Yeah, even during the extended freakout section the non-stop music only adds to the manic hallucinogenic horror.

Brody for the New Yorker and Scott for NYT not positive:

https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/climax
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/movies/climax-review.html

i think the "as far as Noe goes" covers a lot of my question there; i think he's a fun time but he's sure not for everyone!

this was a good way to kill an hour last night; not much new to be learned but great archival footage of Ruth Brown (who has a lot of the performance tics and look of Cardi B, btw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdOp3usR7sI

The Eyes Of Orson Welles - 7/10
Tokyo! - 7/10 (8/10 for Carax's segment)
Boy Meets Girl - 9/10

*Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Siegel) 10/10
*A Shot in the Dark (1964, Edwards) 8/10
Too Beautiful for You (1989, Blier) 6/10
*The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Welles) 9/10
Hello, Sister! (1933, Stroheim, Crosland, Werker) 6/10
mother! (2017, Aronofsky) 6/10
Quick Millions (1931, Brown) 7/10
24 Frames (2017, Kiarostami) 5/10
Sweet Charity (1969, Fosse) 6/10
*Our Man in Havana (1959, Reed) 7/10

Thunder Road lived up to the hype; really well acted. On Amazon Prime now btw.

The Towering Inferno (Irwin Allen, 1974) 4/10
Airport (Seaton and Hathaway, 1970) 3/10; square and wooden; even the younger actors look old
Airport 1975 (Smight, 1974) 3/10; corn instead of wood; starring everyone alive in the 1970s
Earthquake (Robson, 1974) 4/10
Juggernaut (Lester, 1974) 6/10

I suspect that The Poseidon Adventure, which I watched last year, is the best of the 70s disaster movies.

Juggernaut!

Dan S: Have you seen The World of Apu, the third part of the trilogy? I give the whole trilogy a 10, especially if you're lucky enough to see all three films in one sitting; if I break it down by film, it's probably the weakest of the three, but only slightly--and it has Sharmila Tagore.

the wife (2017 bjorn runge) 7.5/10
three identical strangers (2018 tim wardle) 7.5/10
in a relationship (2018 sam boyd) 7/10
*michael clayton (2007 tony gilroy) 8/10
transit (2019 petzold) 6/10
struggle: the life and lost art of szukalski (2018 irek dobrowolski) 10/10
papillion (2017 michael noer) 5/10
dawson city: frozen time (2016 bill morrison) 10/10
leave no trace (2018 granik) 5.5/10

Xp No I’ve been so wanting to see it but haven’t been able to yet

dawson city: frozen time (2016 bill morrison) 10/10

I guess I gotta see this. was going to last summer but multiple friends told me (independently of each other) that the footage was cool, but the score drove them bananas and basically ruined it. but the other day a couple other people I know were raving about it, said it was amazing esp. if you're interested in archiving & film history.

yea def, its just a really cool story & terribly well assembled imo; i enjoyed the score, thought it was fitting, nothing abt it occurs to me that would possibly "ruin" the doc

*Les Amants du Pont Neuf : 8/10
*Mauvais Sang : 9/10
Puffball : 7/10
Seance On A Wet Afternoon : 7/10

dawson is on kanopy btw

La Salamandre -9/10

I was obsessed with this for a while 15 or 20 years ago. I even made a homemade soundtrack by recording all the music cues from a VHS rental. Listening to it right now in fact. Music was by "Patrick Moraz et le Main Horse Airline". Checking now, - two tracks from the soundtrack are on Spotify/iTunes/Youtube/etc. Must see it again some day. Don't recall much about it other than Bulle Ogier acting aloof and two journalists(?) trying to get her to act less aloof. I think maybe she was a murderer? Back then I also saw "Messidor" by the same director (Alain Tanner) and meant to explore his work more but his films just weren't that easy to see. A couple of years after I saw this I found a poster for it in Paris but I passed it up because it was a bit expensive and I doubted I could get it home without squishing it.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzY5OGYxYjYtMTUyNi00M2MxLWFhMDctNjAxNmI4Yjc4YzAwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUyMTgxNjA@._V1_.jpg

P.S. I guess I should ask - - how did you see it? If it's available somewhere I should get it

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Everything was nailed from what is one of my newly favorited books, but the additions of emotional range really screwballed it for me. I've never been an elitist type to call for incessant comparisons b/w superior/inferiority of source material versus adaptation, but --- to depict Leamas as a hopeless romantic was such a downfall. He was a man who denied being in love, who adapted his same cynicisms of the ideological war to his newfound relationship. That it was pointless. It wasn't until his cynicism backfired in the end that he realized what he had lost. I don't accept this as an embrace ideology, but rather an acceptance that his life in England was so devoid of meaning that Ann was all he had. Anyways, the film forwent with all that and chose to depict Leamas as in love with her from time of meeting to the very end. Maybe that still works. I don't think so.

Thank you.

Watched The Fugitive with the kids. Very '90s, but held up pretty well thanks to some good performances, and just a complete happy coincidence we happened to watch the Chicago-set movie on the very calendar weekend in which it was taking place!

Triangle (Smith 2009)
The Talk Of The Town (Stevens, Van Every, Shaw, Buchman, after Harmon 1942)
Touch Of Evil (Welles after Masterson 1958) [DCP]
* Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles 1971) [DCP]
Funny Face (Donen, Gershe, Gershwin & Gershwin 1957)
The Breaker Upperers (Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek 2018)
* Sorry To Bother You (Riley 2018) [DCP]
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (Coppola 2012)
Private Property (Stevens 1959)
* Wild Things (McNaughton, Peters 1998)
Scorchy (Avedis 1976)
Mississipi Grind (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck 2015)
Rock 'N' Roll Cowboys (Stewart, Young 1987) [cinema projection of an NTSC VHS of a PAL telemovie]
The Fortune Cookie (Wilder, Diamond 1966)
They Live (Carpenter & fake Carpenter, after Wray-after-Nelson 1988) [DCP]

It's a been a while since a movie knocked me out like Birds of Passage did.

yea i saw that @ tiff, good stuff

So far it’s the best film I have seen this year and there’s been some good competition!